Penetration rates of Electronic Communication Services in the European Union

When broadband and narrowband access are combined, approximately seven out of ten EU households have home Internet access (68%). This proportion has increased by four percentage points since the 2012 report. The main reasons are lack of interest (65%), cost (19%), and that either the respondent or their household members did not know what the Internet was (7%).

Consumer sensitivity to Internet connection speed

The survey found that nearly six out of ten respondents (57%) did not know the maximum download speed of their Internet connection. Furthermore, nearly a quarter of the respondents who knew their download speed said that their actual Internet download and upload speeds did not match the terms of their contract.

The price and technical features of the connection (maximum speed and download capacities) are the main selection criteria when subscribing to an Internet connection. Overall, slightly less than half of all respondents would be willing to change their Internet packages for higher speed or greater downloading capacity (45%), broken down as follows:

• 29% of the respondents would only change service provider to get a higher speed connection for the same price,
  
• 5% would only pay more for a faster Internet connection offered by their current Internet provider and
  
• 11% respondents would be willing to move for either both options.

Quality of experience of communication access services

Slightly less than three out of ten respondents had been blocked from accessing online content or applications either often or sometimes while using the Internet from home (29%). Furthermore, approximately four in ten respondents (43%) either sometimes or often experienced difficulties accessing online content and applications from home due to insufficient Internet speed or downloading capacity.

On the other hand, the proportion of respondents who reported that access to online content or applications is sometimes blocked on their mobile phones has slightly increased to 20% from 16% in the previous report. Furthermore, around four in ten respondents thought their mobile Internet connection provider was responsible for blocking content (37%) and more than three in ten thought the application or content provider was responsible (32%). Approaching one in five respondents believed they were blocked from accessing content due to geographical copyright restrictions (17%) or by the manufacturer of their mobile phone (15%).

Affordability

Over half of EU citizens limit their national and international mobile phone calls because of concerns about cost (respectively 55% and 54%).
Around one-third of EU citizens (34%) use the Internet to make cheap phone calls (using voice over IP technologies), which is a seven percentage points increase since the 2012 report.

Price transparency and switching service package providers

Slightly less than one third of EU citizens disagree that it is easy to compare the terms of service packages (29%), a 3-point increase since the 2012 Eurobarometer report. More than four in ten respondents reported that they have considered changing their bundle provider (42%), a nine percentage point increase since the previous survey (33%).

In his LinkedIn post, Branson referred to a fairly extensive IBM  study of CEO's and their attitudes to social networks. 1,709 CEO's and senior public sector leaders across 18 industries and 64 countries were contacted. In summary, the industry leaders agreed a set of three imperatives for ongoing success:

1. Empowering employees through values: employees across organisations are being encouraged to learn from each other and pool resource and knowledge to help drive innovation. 65% of them saw ethics and values, as well as 65% a collaborative environment as significant for their success. Only 58% by comparison highlighted purpose and mission.
2. Engaging customers as individuals: efforts to understand customers (see “Commercial exploitation…” below) and involve all stakeholders in the value chain (see “Sustainability”), respondents underlined a real need to involve their customers directly. It is just as important to step up an understanding of individual customer needs as it is to improve response times to market needs (72% of respondents in each case).
3. Amplifying innovation with partnerships: now more than ever, organisations are partnering even with those who previously would be regarded as competitors, and those from completely different or new industries. External partnering is seen as a key source of innovation (59% of “outperformers” recognise this as opposed to 46% of their less successful counterparts).

The push in IBM terms is about “leading through connections”; underlying it all, though, is participation, which – as outlined below – has both social and economic implications.

And a socio-economic take

Through the various workshops SESERV organised ( Oxford, Athens, Brussels) and the associated focus groups reported on in this year’s deliverables (D1.5, D2.2, and D3.2), we have highlighted the need for all of the FI stakeholders we have identified to be engaged: notwithstanding the knock-on effects for network operators, there is an increasing drive for participation: users are driving innovation, typically via non-PC devices, even around what would previously have been branded as having little cultural value. Over time, we have seen demonstrated:

• Commercial exploitation of social networking sites: On the one hand, more and more commercially useful information can be gathered from such socially-focussed engagement on-line (SocIoS, SOCIETIES, the IBM Smart Planet campaign). Our FI presence seeds the commercial innovation the IBM study emphasised as important. But it is not necessarily the services and applications assumed for driving the virtuous cycle (link); instead it is to do with
• Participation: Despite perceived trust issues (including privacy and how we actually measure and maintain trust), the WeGov study showed (among other things) that end-users want to engage and are willing to participate at any level. It is such participation and a need for on-line presence as well as collaboration which are driving progress for the FI (end-users are already participating on their own terms); and at the same time
• Sustainability: the need for collaboration and the beneficial effects on innovation and sustainability have been recognised for some time. Werbach,Global CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi, highlights transparency (letting people know what’s important and what’s going on), engagement (including all relevant parties) and networking (collaborating with similar and related parties) are essential in moving forward on sustainability. The Boston Consultancy Group talk along the same lines of the need to involving multiple stakeholders because it is beneficial if not essential for sustainability, and just as the CEO's in the IBM study said, there should be cooperation internally as well as externally across the whole value chain. 

For this year's edition, an emphasis has been made on tariff transparency, quality of services and consumer switching, in relation with the current policy debate on net neutrality.

Below you can read an abridged summary of the key findings of the survey (the full report can be found here):

82% of EU citizens who have broadband Internet access at home are unwilling to pay more for a faster Internet connection

• Slightly more than half of EU citizens (58%) do not know what their maximum download speed is (58%).
• Slightly less than half of respondents (46%) sometimes experience difficulties accessing online content and applications due to insufficient speed or capacity, but only 8% reported experiencing these inconveniences often.
• Only 14% of EU citizens would be willing to pay more for a faster Internet connection. Among those who would pay more, 39% want to be able to upload or share content. Respondents who are willing to pay more for an Internet connection with a higher speed or downloading data capacity are more likely to have encountered difficulties accessing online content. Indeed, among those respondents who were unwilling to pay more for a faster Internet connection, over half (57%) report never experiencing difficulty accessing content due to limited speed. By contrast, more than six out of ten respondents who would be willing to pay more experienced difficulties accessing content (62%). The more the respondents are willing to pay the more frequently they experienced problems. Nearly three respondents out of ten (29%) willing to pay 33% or more experienced frequently difficulties whereas they are 15% of those who are willing to pay up to 15% more. On average, more than eight out of ten EU citizens would not be prepared to pay more for an Internet connection with a higher speed or a greater downloading capacity (82%). Most of these citizens would only be willing to pay up to 15% more (11%).
• A quarter of EU citizens have experienced blocking of online content when surfing the Internet from home (26%). Those respondents who are not prepared to pay more have most likely less experience with blocking of online content, compared with those who would pay more for a faster connection (26% and 35%, respectively). However, there is a different pattern among respondents who are ready to pay more. Those respondents who are ready to pay up to 15% more, or between 16 and 33% more, are more likely to have experienced blocking of online content than those who are willing to pay more than 33% more for higher speed (35% and 34% vs. 26%). Most experiences of blocking appear to relate to Internet users trying to access multimedia resources. The most common activity interrupted by blocking was watching videos (33%), followed by listening to music (21%), downloading free video content (19%) and watching live events (17%). Filtering whilst playing online games (17%), downloading free audio content (15%) and watching television (13%) were also mentioned by a substantial proportion of respondents. Only one in twenty (6%) respondents reported having experienced blocking whilst trying to make Internet phone calls, although this may reflect the relatively low incidence of Internet phone calls. 
• One in five users of mobile Internet has experienced blocking of content (20%), a figure five percentage points lower than the levels of blocking experienced when surfing from home.

Half of EU citizens are not aware that network operators and service providers may monitor the content they access (49%).

• EU citizens generally oppose monitoring by service providers. 85% of respondents agreed that service providers should inform before monitoring for any reason. They also largely oppose to monitoring of traffic for marketing reasons. 87% of respondents agreed that service providers should request authorisation before monitoring for marketing purposes.
• A large majority of EU citizens (86%) would want to be told if any of their personal data was lost, stolen or altered in any way. 72% would want to be told under any circumstances, but 14% of citizens would only want to know if they were at risk of financial harm.
• Awareness of content monitoring by network operators and service providers is fairly limited. Fewer than half of EU citizens (43%) are aware of this practice.
• Citizens in all Member States widely agreed that service providers should inform customers before monitoring their traffic data and communications.

• Broadband growth stalls for the first time
• Only a very small proportion of households in Europe have narrowband Internet
• Access to the Internet continues to increase but at a slower rate

Slightly fewer than half of households buy bundled communications services (43%). The most commonly cited aspect of bundled services is the convenience of a single invoice (43%), followed by the perception that they are cheaper than paying for each service separately (31%).

Only a third of respondents have considered changing Internet Service providers (33%) or bundle providers (33%). Most households (62%) have not considered changing their Internet provider

Telephone access is nearly universal (98%) among EU households.

• There has been no shift in the types of telephone access across the EU since spring 2011 or winter 2009. Most households have both fixed and mobile access (62%) and this EU average has remained stable.
• Making phone calls via the Internet has remained broadly stable since spring 2011 (27%, down from 28%). Internet telephony is most popular in NMS12, where 32% of households use it on average.

Most mobile phone users limit their calls with their mobile phones because they are worried about communication charges (63%).

• Identify the key drivers and opportunities for the development of the European Internet industry, its growth and competitiveness;
• Estimate the potential future economic contributions of the European Internet industry;
• Estimate the economic impacts of the Future Internet PPP and its potential successor; and
• Identify, assess and address the future barriers to competitiveness of the European Internet industry.

On the Speaker

On the Speaker

Academic Programme

The principal aim of the programme is to promote interdisciplinary discussion of issues related to Internet Science among early career researchers (advanced PhD students and those in the first four years of their research career) engaged in research related to Internet privacy and identity, trust and reputation mechanisms. Daily activities will be structured around morning lectures and afternoon discussions aimed at developing participants’ thinking on a range of issues central to the Internet. Participants will have the opportunity to discuss their research with faculty and other early career researchers. A range of social events will provide informal opportunities for continued discussions and networking among participants.

The summer school will draw upon the strengths of the Network of Excellence in Internet Science (described below) and will involve participation of many of its members, in addition to colleagues from partner institutions.

Benefits of participation

Participants will meet and work with a diverse group of their peers, a considerable benefit for researchers who may not have large academic peer groups in their own departments. Additionally, participants will:

• Join an international collaboration experience
• Exchange institutional research projects, methods, and interdisciplinary perspectives.
• Contribute to ongoing discussions of research and issues related to Internet Science
• Attend lectures from renowned experts and participate in multi-disciplinary discussions
• Engage in academic and professional networking

Research areas

We welcome applications from early career researchers in any discipline whose work in the field of Internet research engages with the theme of the summer school and reflects the disciplinary base of the Network of Excellence in Internet Science, as described below.

About the Network of Excellence in Internet Science

The Network of Excellence in Internet Science aims to develop an integrated and interdisciplinary scientific understanding of Internet networks and their co-evolution with society. The network is composed of over thirty research institutions across Europe from a variety of disciplines including physics, sociology, game theory, economics, political sciences, network engineering, computation, complexity, networking, security, mathematics, humanities, and law, as well as other relevant social and life sciences. Its main objective is to enable an open and productive dialogue between all disciplines that study Internet systems from any technological or humanistic perspective, and which in turn are being transformed by continuous advances in Internet functionality.

Fees and activities

Delegate fees are £900 and this includes 7 nights’ en suite accommodation at Queen’s College, daily breakfast, lunch (including one BBQ) and refreshments, and two evening college dinners. Summer school participants will have an opportunity to take part in Oxford social activities.

Applications must be submitted by 5p.m. (GMT) on Friday, June 1st. We will notify successful applicants by Friday, June 15.

Go to registration form >

Please contact Tim Davies for further information.